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Asia

Asia, Craft Beer Travel, Destination Beer Travel Guides, Travel

A Guide to Tokyo Craft Beer

What I love most about the craft beer movement is that it’s not isolated to any one country. Sure, the United States may appear to be at the forefront, but wherever I go on my travels — from Barcelona to Cape Town to Rome — I find a birth in the local craft beer movement that is unique to the city or country. Japan, and Tokyo in particular, is no exception to…

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Asia, Eating, Food, Hipmunk CityLove, Travel

What to Eat in Hong Kong – Hipmunk City Love

Hong Kong is a melting pot of cultures uniting expats from throughout Asia, mainland China, and other far-flung corners of the world. Each of those cultures brings its own cuisine helping the city to create a culinary scene where almost any ethnic food is available. Many wealthy residents and visitors are also attracted to the city’s open business scene. Fine dining establishments have followed their wallets helping further to define Hong Kong…

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Asia, Hipmunk CityLove, Travel

Hipmunk City Love – High Tech Hotels in Seoul, Korea

Seoul, Korea is filled with three things – a lot of people (25 million), Korean BBQ, and technology. Not all of these items apply to a good hotel choice–having a hotel room filled with people sounds like a bad idea since I don’t do hostels, and a BBQ grill stationed next to the bed might start to stink. However, a room filled with cool technology would be awesome. Here’s a list of…

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Asia, Travel

Final Thoughts on Thailand

I had difficulty putting my thoughts together on the trip to Thailand.  In fact, this is something my wife and I discussed at length on our absurdly long flight back home.  Was it the trip we dreamed about?  Did it live up to our expectations?  The honest answer is no. Don’t get me wrong, we had an awesome vacation.  I just think that our expectations were a bit high.  Everybody we talked…

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Asia, Travel

Elephant Nature Park – Chiang Mai, Thailand

  Sometime, words just aren’t enough to describe the beautiful wild nature of our world.  I captured these videos at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  The first few clips demonstrate a typical elephant family.  Blood or not, elephants form bonds as tight as families in the human world, and, just like in the natural world, they fiercely defend and protect their babies.  This particular family was not permitted to…

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Asia, Travel

Things Done Thailand

Feasting on red chili shrimp on the beach at night – feet in the sand. Returning to the same “on the beach restaurant” the next day for lunch to sample their curry Getting bent, beat up, and contorted in a Thai massage, but it felt so good Seeing that the bar girl culture is unfortunately just as strong as what I read Riding on the back of a scooter Eating dinner with…

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Asia, Travel

Thai Massage – My Poor Western Body

My dog Vito has difficulty understanding the difference between feet and hands.  Sometimes, he’ll bring the ball to my hand and I’ll throw it.  Other times, he’ll bring it to my foot, drop it, and stare.  As if to say, “Why can’t this appendage throw?”  I guess to dogs all paws do the same thing and so should ours.  Vito has it right though when it comes to the Thai massage.  After…

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Asia, Eating, Food, Travel

Thai Food – We Don’t Need No Stinking Chop Sticks

I am going to start by dispelling the myth – Thai people don’t use chop sticks.  They have realized that better tools exist for getting food from your plate to your mouth than two splintery sticks.  So the next time a Thai restaurant tries to be gimmicky and gives you chop sticks instead of silverware, tell them no thanks.  You’ll go native and eat like the Thai people do – with a…

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Asia, Travel

The Journey to Thailand (An excerpt from my journal)

Twenty-seven hours of travelling and I still have not reached the hotel where I will sleep for a few hours before catching a fourth flight to Phuket.  I don’t even want to calculate the total time I will have spent travelling.  What the heck was I thinking?  Thailand – the other side of the world. I’m embarrassed to mention the two comfort issues I had to overcome to make the journey over the…

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Asia, Travel

One Night in Bangkok…er, Chiang Mai

One night in Chiang Mai we stumbled into the Riverfront Restaurant and Bar on the Ping River.  I can’t really comment on the food as it apparently wasn’t memorable since I have no notes on it.  It was probably like most Thai places – scarily extensive covering Thai to American to European.  We had spent the afternoon at a cooking school and really weren’t hungry but decided that we had to at…

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